Business Leader

Dougal Shaw checks-in to a Yotel for a guided tour of the business with CEO Hubert Viriot. The brand is known for its compact, functional but stylish designs. It was started by British entrepreneur Simon Woodroffe, who also founded the Yo! Sushi food chain. Inspired by high-end, long-haul travel and the minimalism of Japanese hotels, he opened the first Yotel at Gatwick Airport in 2007. The idea was successful and expanded to other international airports. Hubert Viriot joined the business as CEO in 2014 with a mission to supercharge the concept with global expansion, taking it into urban areas. It now has 23 hotels in cities around the world, in places like New York, Miami, Singapore, Geneva and Edinburgh. So what’s the secret formula for Yotel and how do you scale a new hotel brand?

Bruce Bratley has gone from studying for a PhD to building one of the UK’s most successful recycling businesses. He founded the waste management and recycling company First Mile in London in 2004. It now has 200 employees, an annual turnover of £50m and helps more than 30,000 businesses around the UK with recycling solutions. Its clients include large companies like Pret, Caffè Nero, Netflix and Amazon, as well as small businesses ranging from clothes stores to restaurants. First Mile collects more than 65,000 tonnes of waste every year using zero and low-emission vehicles and electric cargo bikes, which it takes to recycling centres. Bratley explains to Dougal Shaw how he built the business from scratch as well as offering some tips on how to recycle more intelligently...

Graham Ruddick meets Joe Lister, the chief executive of Unite Group, to hear the story behind how this business went from a student start-up in Bristol to a FTSE 100 company. Unite's unique culture is at the heart of it all...

Here are three business leaders who all have one thing in common - they lead US-based, SaaS companies valued at more than $1 billion. SaaS (software as a service) businesses are the lifeblood of the modern economy. Their products help with everything from sales calls and marketing to employee onboarding and supply chain management. These days all companies are awash with data, but artificial intelligence is making it easier than ever to put that data to use. Dougal Shaw speaks to the three CEOs about how they scaled-up their business. He speaks one-on-one with Katherine Kostereva of Creatio, Chet Kapoor of Datastax and Doug Winter of Seismic.

Highland Europe was founded on the basis that promising European businesses, including those in the UK, can take on the US tech giants if they get the right funding. In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Fergal Mullen, the co-founder of Highland Europe, explains what he looks for in founders and promising businesses (and what he avoids). And why Europe could take on the US by merging the major stock markets across the continent, including London

Julia Pyke is joint managing director of the Sizewell C nuclear plant and she thinks nuclear power has an image problem. She blames a lot of this on The Simpsons cartoon and in particular, the evil character Mr Burns. However, as Pyke explains to Dougal Shaw, she is trying to challenge that stereotype while building Sizewell C in Suffolk, which is due to switch on in the mid-2030s.The UK hasn’t turned on a new nuclear plant for three decades. The climate crisis has made nuclear energy more appealing. However, nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima still loom large in the public imagination. Pyke explains how she is building a nuclear workforce that is diverse and reflects modern society, while also making the case for the safety of the nuclear industry.

Thomson Reuters is a modern news and information giant. It is worth more than $85 billion (£64 billion) and is one of the leading sources of news around the world. Paul Julius Reuter started Reuters with an office in 1851. Since then it was the first to tell the world about the sinking of the Titantic, the construction of the Berlin Wall and, in more modern times, that Mark Zuckerberg planned to float Facebook on the stock market. It's also won a string of Pulitzer Prizes. However, today, the bulk of the company's revenues comes from law, tax, accounting and other specialists areasIn this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Graham Ruddick speaks to chief executive Steve Hasker about the story so far and what may come next, including all the work that Thomson Reuters is doing on artificial intelligence

Dougal Shaw takes a trip to the Comedy Store in central London to meet a legend of improvisational comedy, who has a few tricks he can teach businesses. Neil Mullarkey has been performing with the Comedy Store Players every week for three decades. He has also worked closely with Mike Myers, who starred in the Austin Powers films. These days, as well as performing unscripted comedy, Mullarkey runs staff workshops with businesses and coaches individual CEOs, showing how the tools of his trade can help them. So how does improvisational comedy help you get ahead in business? Mullarkey shares tips on teamwork, presentation skills and getting comfortable with spontaneity.

Andrew Jones was the director of a FTSE 100 company and highly regarded in the business world. But he was concerned he was missing a big opportunity. So, inspired by Warren Buffett, Jones decided to risk his career and launch his own business. It proved to be a great decision. In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Andrew Jones tells Graham Ruddick what happened next - he built a new FTSE 100 company of his own...This episode covers:-The story behind London Metric (market capitalisation of £4bn)-Raising money from investors-The wisdom of Warren Buffett-Modern retail and property trends-Negotiating with top entrepreneurs